Kenny Chesney Highlights Chaos In New Music Video For ‘Noise’

Kenny Chesney takes aim at the chaos of today’s world with his new music video for ‘Noise,’ blending together fast-paced images that will make your head spin. Technology, or rather, our obsession with it, helped the Country Fest 2016 artist create the song and the feel for the video, as he told Rolling Stone Country:

“I feel like in my own life that I’ve lost a bit of human connection,” admits the singer. “We communicate in such a fast pace, and there’s this addiction to communication with all the devices we have. I notice it with my friends in our social time: if you have five seconds to yourself, you’re looking at your phone to see if someone texted.”

Cell phones and computer screens are joined by a hodgepodge of other noisemakers in the song’s new video, directed by longtime Chesney collaborator Shaun Silva. The mix of images is rapid and thoughtfully random: There are supermodels walking catwalks, women getting Botox shots, protestors marching streets, wrecking balls, snake handlers, strippers and celebrities ranging from Donald Trump to Paris Hilton — all in blink-and-you’ll-miss-it shots. It’s almost like the music video equivalent of a Jackson Pollock painting: the busiest piece of art you’ve ever seen, with a million different strokes merged together into one beautifully chaotic theme.

“What Shaun and I try to do is have the video manifest what’s inside those songs,” Chesney explains. “[The video] captures what was rolling around in my head, even in the initial conversation when we were writing. It really captured what I was thinking and the essence of how we can get lost in this fog and be drowned by all of it. “

The “Noise” video ends with the closing of a laptop and the dimming of a soundboard’s volume that yield to several scenes depicting the beauty of the technology-free outdoors: A little girl runs through a wheat field, a sunset dances on calm ocean waters, a hiker takes in a breathtaking mountaintop view. . . Chesney offers these scenes not as a solution to the noise problem, but rather as a reminder that there’s a whole, gorgeous world out there that just can’t be projected on a screen.

“I’ve never been one to preach,” he says emphatically. (And he’s got a catalog of nostalgic, feel-good songs to back that up.) Though “Noise” carries with it a timely, poignant message, Chesney is simply shedding light on the problem — not getting on any sort of soapbox about a fix for it.

“I had to walk a fine line here, because it would’ve been easy to preach and tell people what to think or what to do,” says the singer-songwriter. “We were able to bring in politics without being political. We were able to show a lot of things without painting ourselves into a corner. That’s the thing I’m most proud of in writing this song: We’re not preaching to anyone, we’re just making a statement about the way we live. The message is to try to be mindful of it. If you love someone, tell them you love them. Don’t text it to them! There is so much life to be lived outside our phones.”

Amie Winters

Amie Winters recently traded in a nearly 10-year career in television broadcasting to join the amazing crew at Chippewa Valley Music Festivals. She's thrilled to be a part of the team bringing you the best fests in the Midwest!